Rakaia River

Press, 2 May 1984, Page 14

Rakaia River

Sir,—The alleged closing of the Rakaia River mouth on April 12 calls to question the abilities of the managers of the Rakaia River’s water resources — the North Canterbury Catchment Board. The board claims that it can fairly manage the river’s water resources so the needs of both conservation £and development are met, yet

when the mouth allegedly closed it was unable to supply flow level figures from the monitoring station at the gorge. A day later the board still did not know what the flow had been. Day-to-day management is impossible without day-to-day knowledge of flow levels. If the board cannot manage the Rakaia’s water resources now when there are only minor irrigation schemes running from the river, how can it possibly cope with the highly complex water-balancing act that will be required if the draft Conservation Order is implemented?— Yours, etc., S. A. KING, Rangiora. April 15. 1984. [Mr E. R. Wood, chief executive officer of the North Canterbury Catchment Board, replies: “The board has a continuous recorder at the Rakaia Gorge. It can be interrogated from the board’s office by radio and a flow figure provided at any time. The flow on April 12 was 115 cubic metres per second and I regret that this information was not provided in response to the inquiry made on April 13.”]